Meraki MR70 for point-to-point mesh / wireless bridge?

[kirbyz]

Hi Community, 

I am looking forward to make a demo lab in our office and planning to use MR70 as wireless mesh even though it has omni directional antennas. May I know if the above setup would be feasible? Otherwise, please recommend an alternative for MR70.

Also, I want to know the maximum range for point to point of MR70?

[PaulMcG · Accepted solution]

Your setup as pictured should work.  But Meraki AP have limited functions when deployed as a wireless bridge.  Only one vlan can be used, so if you want to have seperate vlans on the other end of the bridge, you would need to use the routing capabilities of the MS210.  All documented here.

https://documentation.meraki.com/MR/WiFi_Basics_and_Best_Practices/Extending_the_LAN_with_a_Wireless...

[cmr]

@PaulMcG you should be okay for a demo with this, but an MR76 with a narrow beam antenna would be better if you need the bridge to be more than a few tens of metres.

[Ryan_Miles]

this actually won't work/is not supported. the MR36 will not come up. you will need a layer 3 switch on the far side and the MR36 needs to be on a layer 3 network behind that switch.

https://documentation.meraki.com/MR/WiFi_Basics_and_Best_Practices/Extending_the_LAN_with_a_Wireless...

[kirbyz]

Do you mean a full layer 3 switch like the MS250 with DHCP Server capabilities?

[Ryan_Miles]

MS210 minimum. In that case you would need to host the DHCP on some other device like an external DHCP server.

[Dunky]

@Ryan_Miles I know things have moved on since this thread so just wanted to check out if we can now do this using MR76's.

I have a remote building that I need to extend the network into.  The remote building will have a switch and needs to support multiple VLANs (cameras and users etc).

I don't need any clients to connect to the MR76's (although bonus if they could), I just need my VLANs that are available in the main site to be available on the switch in the remote building (over the road).  All interVLAN routing is currently done on MX's.

[Ryan_Miles]

Will the remote building have more wired APs? If yes the switch will need to be L3 capable. If no APs and just wired cameras and clients onto multiple VLANs then you just need Support to enable Multi-VLAN Mesh on the repeater.

[Dunky]

Thanks for the prompt reply Ryan. No, there will not be any MR's in the remote building, just VLANs on the switch there.

Sounds like a result, many thanks.

So I can get away with an MS120/130 in the remote building.

[Ryan_Miles]

Ok then yes that's just Multi-VLAN Mesh like my example here

[Dunky]

Does the remote MS have to be in a different VLAN from the MS's on the local site. We have a Network Mgmnt VLAN where all the MS's, MR's etc have static IP's.

[Ryan_Miles]

No. As my diagram shows the switches on both sides are in VLAN 72 for their mgmt IP.

[Dunky]

Ok so Ive gotten to the stage where I have to configure this shortly.

Main site has MX, MS210 and MR76 (gateway)
Remote site has MS130 (VLAN2), MV's(VLAN31) and MR76 (repeater), plus wired clients in say VLAN 100.

All my MS's/MR's have static IPs in say VLAN 2. MV's are DHCP
DHCP is on MX at the main site.

Can the MR and MS both be in VLAN 2 -I'm a little unsure as to why the diagram above shows 2 separate VLANs for MR and MS mgmnt and why there is a native VLAN defined on the trunk ports?

The text at the top of the diagram above refers to "On the Network-wide page set the AP ethernet port behaviour to map to a bridge mode SSID" - Is this implying that the remote site is a separate network in the dashboard and is configured on that specifc network? I cannot find this in any of the Network-Wide menus

I would appreciate some clarity on the above so that I can get it working when the kit arrives next week.

[Ryan_Miles]

My diagram has unique mgmt VLANs for APs and Switches simply due to my preference and common best practices of using mgmt VLANs for infrastructure devices.

And the native VLAN config is the simplest way to place the devices onto the desired mgmt VLAN rather than tagging those VLANs. You can deploy it differently if you prefer.

The diagram is showing a single network. 

Network-wide > General is the page I'm speaking about with regards to configuring the repeater ethernet behavior.

[Dunky]

I can see I'm gonna have fun trying to get this configured 😀

[Ryan_Miles]

The "behave like they are connected to SSID" function dictates what SSID and therefore the associated VLAN it's configured for is mapped to the ethernet port of the repeater.

So, this port specifically.

In this example I show standard mesh (not multi VLAN mesh like shown above) and the config maps to a SSID that is configured for VLAN 80. This means the repeater ethernet port is in VLAN 80 and subsequently everything connected to it will also be in VLAN 80. In standard mesh the "behave like" config is important in order to make sure all connected things downstream of the repeater's wired port are on the correct VLAN.

With multi VLAN mesh the "behave like" setting is slightly less relevant because now the wireless mesh link is a trunk and can carry all VLANs. So regardless of what SSID the "behave like" setting points to it's now carrying all VLANs so you can configure whatever you want for the repeater side switch mgmt IP, client VLANs, etc.

[Dunky]

I think I've got it.  Will find out when the kits on my desk and I'm pulling my hair out.

Thanks Ryan, really appreciate your guidance on this one 

[Dunky]

@Ryan_Miles Just thought I would let you know that we have gotten multi-VLAN mesh working between a pair of MR76's.  Thank you so much for your help and guidance on this.

[JimW2]

I never saw anything about expected distances that the MR76 can do with the beam antenna.  I know you can't Guarantee anything, but what should I expect for max distance and assuming it can support a warm humid climate at 180Meters, what would be the expected throughput for Multi VLAN traffic?